Russian Christmas!

Merry Christmas, russian style!! On January 7, 2008 we celebrated Christmas! And Santa actually made it all the way to Nizhnevartovsk! The kids were sooo excited :) We actually had to wake them up! Chris came over at 9:45am, and Lee and I were just getting dressed--yes, we are lazy! Then we woke the kids up, and told them that Santa had visited us. Emma took right to it, but Paul had to wake up a bit before he really enjoyed the presents. In fact, he kept asking Emma to help him unwrap his presents! I was surprised! Thank you all so much for the gifts you sent! A big thank you to Grammie, Nana and Grandaddy, Grandma Gigi and grandpa dave, Papa and Mimi, Avery, Grandma and Papa, Mr. Chris, and Nana and Grandpa Novosad-- the kids loved the presents!! After we opened the gifts we ate breakfast and the boys (meaning Lee and Chris) settled down to play wii, and the kids enjoyed their new toys.

During the day, the doorbell rang several times---we couldn't figure out who in the world was coming over---so when we opened the door, we were surprised to see groups of little kids there! They sang a little russian song, sprinkled stuff on the ground and then held out a bag for us to put candy in! Luckily, I remembered Inna telling me about this tradition, so Lee ran to the kitchen and found candy to give them. It was really cute! I couldn't help but think that they missed the occasion for candy gathering by a little over 2 months :) hee hee... Anyway! We had a super holiday, and were sad to see it end, but as they say, it was time to get back to reality.

Hope everyone is doing well! We miss and love you so much! love, juli

Lapland!!

Well, here is our album of our trip to Lapland. I know the pics are all out of order, but here you will find pics of Santa's village (that lies on the arctic circle), the arctic zoo, santa park (where there are pics of us in the ice bar), our New Year's Eve party--we all had a great time :) Santa came and brought a backpack to emma, and cars to Paul. The part paul liked the best was when the "la la's" danced....the pic of him staring is while he is watching them dance, and the one with his arm stretched out, is when he is demanding to go find the la la's. He actually chased after them! The next pictures are of our dog sled andreindeer ride, snowmobile ride to go see the Northern lights, and our trip to see the "troll village." We had a great time despite the 4 train changes we had to make to get to Kemi, Finland :) As you can well imagine, it wasn't fun loading up suitcases and kids that many times! However, on the way back, we only had to make one change in Helsinki. :) If you ever have the chance to go, you should---it was magical!

St. Petersburg

Hello! Well, we just returned from our trip--it was great! The kids loved it, and we really enjoyed seeing some new sights :) Here are some pics from the few hours we spent in St. Petersburg. The last one is of us at the train station waiting to board :)